The Alabama women’s swimming and diving team opened the 2007-08 season by beating Atlantic Coast Conference foes Georgia Tech and Clemson at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center Saturday afternoon.
“The girls did pretty well overall and I think it was a good starting point,” head coach Eric McIlquham said. “Overall we’re very young and this is going to be a process as we mature of the course of the season. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us over the next several weeks.”
The Tide women beat Clemson 166-130 and Tech 183-115 in the quad meet while falling to Florida State 203-97. The Tide men fell to Clemson 187-107, FSU 190-108 and Georgia Tech 162-138.
Senior Erin Sparks swam away with top honors in the 200 IM, touching at 2:04.84, more than two and a half seconds ahead of the field. Sparks was also second in the 100 breaststroke with a 1:04.68. Freshman Lauren Dunn finished second off the one-meter board with 266.60 points, just 15/100ths of a point behind Georgia Tech’s Hannah Krimm. She was third off the three-meter board with a score of 275.35.
The Alabama women finished off the meet with a win in the 400 freestyle relay. Freshman Ida Persson, junior Vanessa Von der Heyde, sophomore Agustina de Giovanni and Sparks combined to touch at 3:28.70, more than a half second ahead of the runner-up foursome from Clemson.
De Giovanni was third in both the 1000 freestyle, 10:18.53, and the 500 freestyle, 4:59.30.
The Tide women started the meet off with a second place finish in the 400 medley relay when freshmen Jenna Montgomery, Britney Busch and Persson combined with Von der Heyde to finish at 3:51.30.
One of the highlights of the meet was a dual on the boards between the sophomore duo of Alabama’s Aaron Fleshner and FSU’s Terry Horner. Fleshner earned All-American honors off the three-meter board and the platform last season while Horner won the NCAA one-meter title as a rookie.
Horner came out on top off the one-meter, 388.85-361.90 while Fleshner won the three-meter battle 364.95-310.40. Tide freshman Adam Booher was third off the one-meter with 287.00 points.
Junior Chris Perry won the 100 backstroke with a 51.34. Freshman Catalin Cosma bettered the 500 freestyle field by more than a second, turning in a time of 4:34.22 He was third in the 1000 freestyle with a 9:37.78. Sophomore Alin Mihalca was third in the 200 freestyle, touching the wall at 1:42.98.
Alabama’s women returns to action Oct. 26-27 at the SMU Classic while the men and women open at home November 2 against LSU and Vanderbilt.
